It was on fire, and IT FELL FROM THE SKY March 25, 2011
This is a completely true story, and the events of that night played out just like this, to the best of my recollection.
Let me set the stage for you: It’s 1987, and I’m 14 years old. I live in the affluent suburb of Mill Valley, California. It’s where white privilege collides white guilt, and everyone tries to flaunt their wealth in the most socially responsible way possible (or at least band-aid it over with a “you can’t hug your child with nuclear arms” bumpersticker).
Most importantly, it’s two things:
1) The suburbs. Specifically, the suburbs with no quick and reliable public transportation to anywhere fun at all. San Francisco might as well have been the goddamn moon, it was so inaccessible.
2) It’s LONG before the internet reached into every home via a web browser – which means that our sexual knowledge was gleaned from SexEd, stolen Penthouse magazines (usually from the 70’s), and complete and total young-male-macho-bravado bullshitting.
Given that, it’s no surprise that I & my friends are hanging out, indoors, on a summer Saturday night, and playing Nintendo. We weren’t popular or cool – we were the kids that hung out in the back parking lot during lunch breaks and smoked and were summarily written off by all guidance counselors (not that that should ever hold any weight, mind you – most guidance counselors are such complete dismissive snots because they’re so ineffectual) – so our social calendars weren’t what you would have called packed.
Right about the time that Ken is getting ready to line up the final blow in Legend of Zelda, his younger brother Tony comes running up the stairs, hollering “YOUGUYSYOUGUYSYOUGUYSYOUGUYS!”, and stands right in front of the TV(1), slinging his backpack off of his shoulder, and says “You’ll NEVER believe what I found behind Long’s Drugs!”, and reaches into the backpack to grab something, and holds it aloft like Luke Skywalker with his first lightsaber… and we all look up, and see that he’s got a vibrator – a big, white one.
Point of reference – except even more phallic(2)
Keep in mind, it’s the 80’s – this isn’t any modern iteration of a sex toy, molded to sensually ergonomic contours and with stimulating rabbit-ear attachments, available in a fine array of jellyfish-like colors, oh no… this was one of those old-school all-white “personal massagers”, completely non-descript out of shame.
It looked less like a sex toy, and more like a poor bedraggled booster rocket that had headed to Cape Canaveral with dreams of NASA-glory, only to have found itself down on its luck skulking in back-alleys. We all gathered around it, trying to absorb particles of adultness and cool… up until the other Andrew hollered “FUCK! It’s got teethmarks on it!”, which was the exact cue for parental involvement – and Ken’s dad stomped into the room. Angry that the slumber of the heartily-partied had been interrupted, he shouted "What the fuck are you fuckers making all the noise about? What's this shit about dildos? You kids wouldn't know a dildo if you ever fucking saw one!", and exited stage left towards his bedroom and dildo-free sleep.
If there’s one thing that teenage boys hate more than being ignorant about sex, it’s adults making fun of us for being ignorant about sex… and knowing that a full weapons-grade mocking would occur once Ken’s Dad woke up and saw the vibrator again, along with a requisite sweep of the room for contraband(3) upon vibrator confirmation, it had to go. And you’re a male, between the ages of 8 and 21, there is only one sure way to get rid of anything:
Fire.
We scampered through the house, on the frantic hunt for anything that was a) flammable, and b) hadn’t been ignited during previous bouts of extended suburban boredom. After an exhaustive search(4), we located a half full jar of Elmer’s rubber cement, the kind with the applicator brush stuck on the bottom of the lid, and operations commenced.
It’s important to remind everyone that we were teenage boys in the 80’s – and this meant that anything “gay” or “queer” was something to be avoided at all costs (even though we all agreed that there was nothing wrong with it, as long as it wasn’t us). This was often demonstrated by, at random intervals, punch each-other in the shoulders. So, keeping this in mind, here we all were, gathered around the dining room table, with the vibrator in the center and pointing straight up, and daintily painting on rubber cement. It was kind of like the scene in 2001, except with less monkeys, more faux-cock, and rubber cement(5).
As soon as consensus was reached that we had to have enough rubber cement painted on, we headed to the front of the house, and put the vibrator in the middle of the road. We argued about who would actually light it, until a more democratic solution of flicking lit matches at it from afar was reached. The sun was almost completely set at this point, and you could see each match arcing out, and missing… until one hit and the vibrator caught fire.
Because Tony was the youngest, he’d been given lookout duty – necessary because every so often, a cop car would swing by on weekends to make sure us teenagers were refraining from all fun, yes sir, of course sir, we’re good kids sir. And sure enough, he nervously shouted that a cop car was coming. Troy had a bottle of wine he’d swiped from his job as a liquor store stock boy and had been swigging right from the bottle. He quickly dumped a load of red wine and the flames went out… and we scampered like a bunch of cockroaches, hiding behind the fence and a truck, watching a cop car obliviously passing right over a still-smoking sex toy.
We decided to go for it, and slathered all the remaining rubber cement on, and back in the road it went, making the pavement look like it was sporting a white woody. And out came the matches again – flick, hiss… flick, hiss… flick, hiss… flick, WHOOMPF – and the dildo was burning bright. Tony, already nervous from the last cop car nearly catching us, said he thought the cop was coming by again. So out came the bottle of wine… which had absolutely no effect. The special version of hysteria native to only teenagers set in, and we all kept saying “FUCK! What do we do? What do we do?”.
I was always the most socially awkward of our clique. Always the last one to step up and try anything risky, always the most shy. So I was just as surprised as everyone else when I hollered “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM IT!” and started running at it like a football player… and I drew my right leg back, and kicked as hard as I could.
Instantly, we all stopped, watching it soar through the air, tumbling end over end, raining flaming hunks of rubber cement(6). It arced through the air, and plunged to earth in the neighbor’s garden(7), at which point the neighbor’s German shepherd dog starts ape-shit-barking like crazy. On flips the light, and out comes the neighbor, in a voice that was, my hand to god, a cross between that of Kermit, Yoda, and Miss Piggy, saying “WHAT IS IT MUFFY? WHAT ARE YOU BARKING AT MUFFY?”
That was it. It was too much. A German shepherd named Muffy – that was the perfect icing in the cake of the whole thing, expertly lancing the bubble of tension from the whole situation, and down we went with laughter, staggering back inside the house.
And that, I swear, is exactly how I remember it all going down.
Dildo, Dildo, burning bright
In the suburbs of the night
What perverted hand or eye
Would leave you outside to die
1) Rightfully earning a hearty “FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK I WAS ABOUT TO KILL GANNON!”. This was in the 80’s, before Hipsters invented irony.
2) Making that whole brother-sister thing WAY WAY skeevier.
3) Even at the best of times, 13-14 year olds with legitimate contraband can’t remember where it is 80% of the time due to the organizational lobe of the brain being nothing more than a nub. This is why parents always, ALWAYS find out their kids are On The Dope because they found Junior’s pipe banging around in the washing machine.
4) We opened a couple of drawers. Our attention span for this sort of thing was two and a half minutes.
5) Again, no grasp of irony.
6) When it comes time to film the TV adaptation of my life, this scene will be in slow motion, set to “Chariots of Fire”
7) We laughed later, imagining hysterical first hand reports of people shouting “IT CAME FROM THE SKY” and headlines of “FLAMING SMUT-MISSLE BLIGHTS LOCAL CROPS”